The car was missing, so I undertook the plug and coil replacement, doing the IMT o-rings along the way.


I was running low on daylight, so I couldn't see into the well, but I pulled my rear plug to find it covered in oil... meaning the pooled oil will have run into the cylinder.

Near as I can tell, it was not pooled high enough to reach the coils, but from how much was coating the plug it still looks to have been a significant amount of oil.


I'm worried about the oil leakage into the cylinder:

Should I be concerned about damaging and hydrolock when I'm going to start the car?

How much oil can I get away with without risking damage?


I'm not sure how to proceed.


Thanks,



Eric

 

It's not enough oil to worry about. It will burn off as soon as you start the car. Now you most likely will have a big impressive cloud of smoke come out the tail pipes!

Because you can't see in the plug wells I spray carb cleaner around the plug before removal and then hold a rag over the hole while blowing it clean with compressed air.

I don't worry about the oil as much as the grit that gets down in there too.
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Thanks for the reassurance.

I'm just a little uneasy because I have no idea how much was pooled.

Normally I check the wells with a bore light, but with the first ones being pristine, and me being in too big of a hurry for my own good I didn't even look at the last one.


In any case, provided I can find the IMT bolt that was missing tomorrow morning, I'm going to get it up and running, and check the rear plug well in another few weeks to see if I have to do the valve cover gaskets, or if the oil ended up in the rear plugs from the leaking IMT (which, as I understand it, is a possible source of the oil in plug wells?)

I'd do them now if I had them, but I'm anxious to get it back on the road, and stripping it down to having both sides of plugs exposed only took an hour anyway, so no big deal if I have to backtrack and pull it apart for the valve covers. The worst part of the whole thing was taking the damn wipers off.

 

+2 on what tbird said, don't worry about the oil that went into the cylinder.

If I were at the point where you are at, I would replace the cam cover gaskets and plug well gasket (seals) at least the passenger side anyways. You can find very inexpensive FelPro aftermarkets anywhere. Of course the drivers side is much easier to change later.

Just my unsolicited 2 cents.

 

+3, in fact, one of the cures for bore wash is squirting oil into each cylinder via the spark plugs holes.

 

I'm in exactly the same position right now, was changing plugs and coils, I found oil in both back wells, my gaskets should be here today.

 

Note to any STR owners, and I suppose NA V8 cars also - I could see to the bottom of the plug wells fairly easily using a light (and small mirror for the rearmost ones). Try it when doing a plug change, if not before

 

No mirror required for our granny mobiles.

eeeerrrrrrtttt!

 

It was definitely solicited!

I went ahead and ordered them this morning off Amazon.

I'm going to do my long awaited refit in the next little while of new bolts for the undercar shield, brakes, shocks, fuel filter, and get the valve covers done too while it's off the road until the early spring.

 

You will have it all ready to go!
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In the middle of doing the dreaded elbow, thought I had better check the plugs, regardless that it's only been 2 years. (not a heavy mileage driver) low and behold, oil all over the coils. "head smack" . Oh and a bolt missing. SOOO happy I spent $3K 2 years ago for all the "fixing" they did.

 

What I have done when I had oil pooled in the spark well at the spark plug. (I know time intensive...but) I taped Q-Tips to the end of a long flat head screwdriver to soak up the oil and get the grit out of the spark well BEFORE removing the spark plug.

Then once that is done I get some compressed air into the spark well to blow any remaining grit straight out - then one more swab w/ the Q-Tips - this way the plug doesn't need to be removed - avoiding getting grit into the cylinder.

Of course, getting new gaskets installed will ensure the oil seepage issue will not happen again.

Just my $0.02

 

Thanks for the input guys.

Quick update from my end - I held off on the valve cover gaskets because they decided to be fussy about shipping to Canada, and I wasn't in the mood to wait another week and a half to get them on my next trip to the US.

In my case, the burning oil smell I'm getting was evidently not the IMT o-rings, but the valve cover gaskets / plug well seals: When I started the car up without the black windshield cowl in place, you can actually see the oil smoke burning upwards. With the cowl in place, you don't see the smoke at all, you only get the occasional burnt oil odour while driving.

Aside from that, I replaced the plastic clips on that black windshield cowl in four locations with a bolt, washer, as a result of several broken clips, and to facilitate easier removal in the future.

Since I'll be tearing it down again in a few weeks to do the valve cover gaskets, I'll try to take a few pictures this time and do my best to document it for posterity here.

If anyone wants pictures of anything specific while I've got it exposed, please let me know and I'll do my best to accommodate.

 

abonano brings up a good point.

You don't want to remove the spark plugs without first making sure the spark plug well is clean. Keeps oil and other bad junk from falling into the cylinder. If it is JUST oil no problem but I always find a little bit of dirt and grit even when everything is dry.

I spray carb cleaner into the plug well and let it sit a minute or two. Then cover the spark plug well with a cloth rag and use my compressed air nozzle to blow all the solution up and into the rag. If the spark plug well is dirty I might do this 2-3 or more times until my rag comes out clean.
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I have the drivers side set, I'm in CYYC, if that helps. G d newel at the shaw